This reminds me of a situation at Twitter where someone was communicating fearlessly to build trust, but learned as the CEO put it there were still consequences.
US companies are going to be weird about this for the next few years. They want to do the profitable thing, but have spent the last decade making workers feel like they have a say. In the end, management and shareholders are in charge, the rest is an illusion.
I've seen this kind of thing pop up in forums over the years. Depending on the audience involved, either you start with strong moderation from the start and make no apologies, or you kinda let "the board decide." Invariably in the latter case, users eventually decide they want moderator elections, etc. because they can't trust the system and the moderators allowed dissent.
HN takes the former model and it seems to have worked out pretty well.
I think those were the last remnants of the cold war. Now every "commie" tool will have to be used to have a say and hope the privacy is still enough not to be infiltrated by agents provocateurs.
US companies are going to be weird about this for the next few years. They want to do the profitable thing, but have spent the last decade making workers feel like they have a say. In the end, management and shareholders are in charge, the rest is an illusion.